


Imitation of Life

by Ashura



Series: All Tomorrow's Shadows [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Post-Hogwarts, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-11
Updated: 2004-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2463998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashura/pseuds/Ashura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of the war, of innocence, of the life they'd known. But they knew it would come to this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imitation of Life

**Author's Note:**

> The final installment in an old trilogy. Title comes from the song that turns up in the epigram, REM's _Imitation of Life_. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. :)

Harry remembers everything, so much more clearly than he admits to.

The first kiss, there was that, under the quidditch pitch in the middle of the night, with the damp grass beneath him and the moonlight filtering through the stands. There was a chip in the edge of the bench above him, and a place where someone had once carved Mary Ann + Jason in the bottom of it. Harry had wondered briefly if Mary Ann and Jason had lain in this same spot, their mouths pressed awkward and hungry together the way his and Draco's were. It kept him from wondering what on earth he was doing kissing Draco Malfoy in the first place.

There are two years of kisses after that first one, two years of secrets, moans, fingertips, whispers, of unspoken promises and prayers gasped out to the silent sky. There is blood, and pain, and love stretched so thin it snaps and stings.

And there is hope, still, because even after the end of the kisses, after the last echo of Draco's _I won't let anyone hurt you_ has faded beyond recall, Harry has seen the longing in his eyes, and recognises it as a mirror of his own. 

***

There was a duel in the middle of the night, where Draco used Dark curses and Harry couldn't bring himself to hurt him, and he scraped his cheek on the floor when he fell.

"I win," Draco crowed, triumphant, wand-tip pressed to Harry's throat. His face was opaque.

"You win," Harry agreed, and Draco touched his sleeve to the bleeding place.

"You're supposed to win," he chided, cleaning the scrape with his lips. "If you can't beat me, how can you beat him?"

"It's different," Harry said.

***

Two nights before the end of classes, before the end of Hogwarts for both of them. They crouch in the overgrown patch of earth that Hagrid once tended, limbs tangled up together, breathing too hard to speak, touching too hard to think. Harry thinks Draco's skin is darker, his hair lighter. He is longer too, and firmer, with more angles and rougher skin. His earlobe tastes like salt, and his eyes glitter when he presses Harry down into the pumpkin patch and shows him goodbye.

"I don't want--"

"I was hoping--"

"I don't believe it's over--"

Harry knows Draco by heart, every inch and corner of him, knows how to make him beg and how to make him scream, and how to make him push Harry down and give in to him. He reads the flickers of light and emotion in Draco's eyes, the lift of his chin, the subtle curve of shoulder that says he is tired, he is worn, he wants comfort without having to ask for it. Even though he knows he can ask Harry anything.

His hair is fine and soft and smells faintly of mint. Harry strokes his fingers through it, and wonders if Draco would give him a lock of it. It is dangerous magic, giving someone a part of yourself, but they have trusted each other with more.

Something is wrong now, something deeper than parting, and Harry kisses Draco's lips and does not ask him what it is. The wind blows voices to them, and Draco hides his face in Harry's sweat-damp chest.

They cling to each other, sticky with sweat and summer leaves, and try to will time to stop. 

***

Harry went to Privet Drive because it seemed it was expected. He had nothing to fetch from the Dursleys' house, and he didn't particularly want to see them. There was a box on the front lawn with 'Harry' written on in thick black pen, and nobody came to the door when he rang the bell. He looked at the box for a while, trying to decide if he should take it.

A tortoiseshell cat rubbed against his leg. "Hello, Harry," Mrs. Figg called from the pavement. "Striking out on your own now, then?"

"Yes," Harry said awkwardly, trying to balance the box in his arms. "Well, not exactly. I'm staying with some friends for a while."

"Ah," said Mrs. Figg, nodding, wisps of grey hair floating hazily about her head. "You'll say hello for me, won't you?"

Harry nodded, and Apparated to the Burrow. It was the last he saw of Number Four, Privet Drive.

For the rest of the summer he lived with the Weasleys. They were happy to have him and treated him like family, even though he didn't always feel like it. He shared a room with Ron, the crooked orange room with the Chudley Cannons zooming over the walls, their beaming faces always asking if he wouldn't want to come for a fly with them. He woke up one night with a paper Snitch buzzing mosquito-like next to his ear, and caught it before he realised what it was.

***

One muggy night in August, Ron wakes Harry by thumping onto his bed and shaking him. Harry tries to hide his head under the pillow, but Ron's poking him with a rolled-up newspaper and urgently whispering his name.

It is a special edition of the _Prophet_. On the front page, Malfoy Manor is in ruins.

"They got him," Ron crows, and the triumph in his voice sounds more like Draco than he would want to know. "They got the bastard."

Harry reaches blearily for the paper, forcing his eyes to focus on the words, and not the shadows flickering around the edge of the photograph. They've captured Draco, but he doesn't understand why, what he was doing, who mounted the attack. He's confused, and his stomach hurts, and there's a tightness in his throat. Ron is all glee and victory, and Harry pushes him away.

"Couldn't it have waited till morning?" he snaps, and pulls his blankets over his head.

Later he finds out that Lucius Malfoy had been broken out of prison, and it may or may not have been Draco. That explains the raid, but Harry is angry that nobody let him know before. He realises how sheltered the Weasleys have kept him all summer, how careful they have been about filtering his contact with the world. He leaves the Burrow that afternoon.

***

It took him just over a month to find a flat of his own, and in the meantime he took a room at the Leaky Cauldron. Everything was busy there, crowded, life was a constant noise. It was a bit of a shock, after the Burrow, and he was disturbed to find out just how much he had missed. Voldemort had made a fortress of Azkaban, and guarded by Dementors, he sent his army into England--trolls, giants, werewolves, all the Dark creatures, and there were rumours of risen corpses of the dead marching in his ranks.

Lupin had fled the country, and Hagrid had gone soon after. Viktor Krum turned up dead the last week of September, and Harry tried to reach Hermione's house before the owl that delivered the _Prophet_ , so he could break the news. He wasn't fast enough, and found her staring out the window, her hands shaking.

"What are we going to do?" she asked, and he thought how wrong it was for her to ask that, she who was always the one coming up with the ideas.

"We have to get rid of him." Harry found the words tumbling from his lips before he had thought them through. "I have to kill him."

Hermione's eyes shone with tears. "How?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't know."

That night when he got home, Draco was waiting for him.

He was paler than before, and thinner, and there was a scrape across his cheek. He looked up at Harry, exhausted, and opened his arms in silence.

Harry went to him.

***

It has been so long, but Harry remembers Draco's body perfectly. He lays claim to everything he thought he had lost: the fold of Draco's elbow, the arch of his neck, the whisper of his hair against the pillow and the jut of his hips as his body writhes on the bed. Draco clings to him, and kisses as if he has forgotten how it tastes to be alive. Harry presses him into the bed and does not ask where he has been for so long. He loses himself in the soft pale of Draco's skin, the tangle of his limbs.

Draco sleeps for three days. He wakes up for a few minutes at a time, when Harry joins him, or brings him tea or eggs and burnt toast. He smiles at Harry every time he sees him, and the smile chases something haunted from his eyes. His skin is dull with exhaustion, and his face is troubled in sleep. Harry stays awake at night standing guard over him, strokes his hair and watches his face calm.

Harry notices, though he never mentions, that Draco's left arm is clear and unflawed. He tells himself he always knew it would be.

Outside the war continues. The towers of Hogwarts crumble, and the Forest moves closer to protect it. The students are sent back to their homes, though nobody really believes it will save them all. Privet drive is flattened, Number Four burnt to the ground. The Prophet runs the story: _You Know Who Destroys Childhood Home of Boy Who Lived_. Harry watches the smoke clear in the photograph and wonders if he should feel sad.

Draco crawls out of bed and wraps his arms around Harry from behind. He's in a worn blue tee shirt of Harry's, and the fact that he hasn't complained about it yet speaks worlds for how tired he's been. He arrived on Harry's doorstep with nothing, and when he has the energy again, he explains to Harry, weary and matter-of-fact, that he has nothing left. Everything has been taken or destroyed--by Voldemort, by Aurors, by his father.

Everything, that is, but Harry.

There is some question about whether Draco is still wanted by the Ministry, so Harry keeps him to himself. It is easy not to mention, when he meets Dumbledore in the back of the Three Broomsticks and pores over maps, plans, old spells, secrets, that Lucius Malfoy's son is waiting at home for him. Draco is not idle either; he sorts through reams of Harry's notes, searching with his own peculiar perspective for something they can use against he who has named himself Dark Lord.

Draco is a shadow of himself, lacking in passion, and this worries Harry. He would have expected...something more, at least, some thirst for revenge, some draw, something besides this ghost-quiet Draco who stares at him soulfully from the shadows and hides in him when he falls asleep. He lies awake, watching him, scatters gentle kisses over damp pale strands of hair.

He feels as if Draco is fading, and Harry is the only thing keeping him from vanishing completely. 

***

Autumn stretched and faded into winter, a cruel bitter winter that left the streets slick with ice and dumped snow down chimneys. The frigid air sunk through skin and the warmest woollen coats, freezing from the inside, chasing away the advances of a dancing fire. Draco had a chill, all through his bones, and stayed wrapped up in blankets while Harry fed him tea.

It was impossible to escape a walk down the street without hearing about the weather. It is a favourite subject for small-talk among the English anyway, but this moreso, because each time someone said "Nasty cold snap we're having, isn't it?" there was an odd tremble to their voice, behind it.

The wind blew in from Azkaban, and bore with it new magic, Dark and insidious, seeping inside and planting despair.

Harry cradled Draco's head in his lap, fingertips fluttering against his clammy cheek. Draco tilted up his face. His eyes were glassy and dull, but he forced a laugh into his voice.

"Harry," he said quietly, "I'm sorry I'm so boring. It never used to be like this."

"You're not boring," Harry protested.

"Of course I am," said Draco. "It's pathetic, just lying here. But I haven't got the energy for anything else. It used to be...well, if nothing else I'd have got your clothes off. There's not much incentive for you to keep me around, like this."

Harry was not certain if Draco was fishing for something or not. "It's all right," he murmured, and kissed Draco's forehead. "I love you."

Draco's eyes were still open, and his eyelashes brushed Harry's cheek. "That's the first time you've said that," he whispered.

Harry shook his head. "Only out loud."

***

It's just like flying, Harry tells himself. To ride the wind, one must simply surrender to it, and he stands with his arms thrown out, the cold biting his cheeks and drying his chapped lips. He knew it would come down to this, somehow, always, that no matter how much fighting, how much spying, how much trying everyone did, that in the end it would come down to him. The scar on his forehead stings, but it gives him focus.

"Wait." He's not alone after all. Draco is next to him, hand twining through his, the pads of his fingers rough and thick. Harry remembers his hands much softer, smoother, but these hands are comforting, too. Stronger.

"You don't have to," Harry whispers. He thinks there is no point in anyone else coming with him; the reason he has not told Ron or Hermione or anyone else where he is. But Draco...Draco he was never good at hiding things from.

"I know." Draco just smiles, and his eyes glitter like snowflakes. "But I said I wouldn't let anyone hurt you."

Harry nods, and Draco leans close and kisses him. They turn into the wind, away from the sunrise.

It's just like flying.

_This lightning storm, This tidal wave_   
_This avalanche, I'm not afraid._   
_C'mon c'mon no one can see me cry..._


End file.
